A subscriber to a cell phone communication provider typically utilizes a voicemail service of the provider for recording messages (voicemails) when unable to answer calls; these voicemail messages may then be replayed later. The cell phone user may also subscribe to a voicemail transcription service that automatically transcribes voicemail messages into text that is then sent to the subscriber as a text and/or email message. To use the voicemail transcription service, the subscriber's cell phone service (e.g., the cell phone communication provider) is configured to forward unanswered calls to a telephone number supplied by the voicemail transcription service. Each call received by the voicemail transcription service is answered and the voice message left by the caller is recorded and stored in a voicemail box assigned to the subscriber of the transcription service. This voicemail is automatically transcribed into text and sent to the subscriber in the form text and/or an email messages. While a valuable service, it is not always desirable to convert all voicemail messages into text, particularly where the cost of the transcription service is based upon the number and/or length of each voicemail.
To control the transcription service, the subscriber must connect to the transcription service (e.g., by calling the voicemail transcription service and/or accessing a web page of the voicemail transcription service) and select one or more options to switch the transcription service on or off. Where a user of the transcription service receives a large volume of voicemail messages, the cost of the voicemail transcription service may be undesirably high. Since the user has no control over the people leaving messages, the only option available to the user is to enable and disable the service, which is a time consuming process and which may result in lost messages.